In a large apartment complex, there are numerous customers subscribing to phone services. Each phone customer has phone lines meandering past the floors and rooms of the apartment complex. All of the phone lines converge in one area of the apartment complex, usually located in the basement, or first floor level.
The phone service provider's lines enter the apartment complex in the converging area. Each customers' phone lines are coupled to respective phone lines of the service provider. Each coupling occurs by way of a separate customer bridge. Typically, an electrical component box houses the customer bridges. The electrical component box protects the customer bridges from contaminates. The electrical component box also provides an orderly way to identify the customer bridges, such as by customer name, phone number, apartment number, etc., to facilitate trouble-shooting, modification, and/or repair of the phone lines associated with a particular phone service customer.
Occasionally a customer will have problems with their phone service, such as a loss of service or excessive noise. Typically, the customer, and/or apartment association, owns the phone lines and phone equipment within the apartment complex. Therefore, if the problem resides within the apartment complex, the costs of repair are the responsibility of the customer or apartment association. If the problem resides outside the apartment complex, the costs of repair are the responsibility of the phone service provider.
The electrical component box, containing the customer bridges, is defined as the property dividing line between the customers/apartment association and the phone service provider. Therefore, it is important to allow each of the apartment residents access to the customer bridge associated with their phone lines. Further, it is important to provide some device at the customer bridge, which allows the customer to determine if the phone service problem is the result of a fault within the apartment complex or outside the apartment complex. To this end, each customer bridge includes a jumper phone line having a standard RJ-11 plug and a standard RJ-11 jack for receiving the RJ-11 plug. The RJ-11 plug and RJ-11 jack allow the connection to the phone service provider to be easily disconnected and reconnected.
By constructing the customer bridge in this manner, if a problem occurs in the phone service, the customer can take a working phone to the basement, locate their customer bridge, unplug the RJ-11 plug from the RJ-11 jack and plug in the RJ-11 plug of the working phone into the RJ-11 jack. If the problem persists, the customer will realize that the source of the problem is with phone service provider's lines. If the problem is corrected, the customer will realize that the source of the problem resides somewhere between the customer's apartment wall jack and their customer bridge, in other words, within the apartment complex's wiring.
Unfortunately, allowing customers access to the customer bridges creates a situation conducive to phone service theft. Any unscrupulous person could bring a phone to the basement of the apartment complex, disconnect the customer bridge of one of the tenants, plug in the phone, and make an unauthorized phone call. The victimized tenant would most likely be unaware of the theft, since their phone lines would be disconnected during the unauthorized call. Only later, when the phone bill arrives, would the victimized tenant realize that a call was made.
One solution has been to restrict access to the basement and/or the electrical component box housing the customer bridges, by locking these areas, and only permitting tenants access to the customer bridges while in the presence of apartment complex personnel. This solution causes inconvenience and labor expenses to both the residents and the apartment complex personnel. Another solution has been to provide keys to the basement and the electrical component box to all of the tenants of the building. In large apartment complexes, this solution has proved unsatisfactory, since one or more unscrupulous tenants, having keys, will steal phone services from their fellow tenants.